November 17th, 2009:

I mentioned Doctor Gebisa Ejeta before when he won the world food prize for his work developing striga resistant sorghum breeds. This is a man who began life… well his own words can say it better than I can paraphrase:

I was born of illiterate parents with little means and raised in a small village without schools in west-central Ethiopia. An only child, I was nurtured with with lots of love, but on a diet less than adequate even for body maintenance, let alone for growth and intellectual development. … I was rescued by a godsend from the United State of America…

I took that quote from his testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign relations this past spring. It was a moving call to renew the international investments in agricultural research, and the training of plant scientists around the world, something the United State and the international community as a whole have let slide for the past two decades. The whole testimony is an excellent read (h/t to mary for pointing it out on the biofortified forums). If you have a few minutes, please take the time to read the whole thing here [pdf]. If you don’t, you surely have the time to read this single paragraph: (more…)

I know I'm reusing images, but this is just a really gorgeous watermelon

Scientific Name: Citrullus lanatus

Purported Genetically Engineered Trait: Lack of seeds

The Reality:

Seedless watermelons grow on triploid (three copies of every chromosome) watermelon plants. Like the banana, triploid watermelons are seedless because it’s impossible to separate three copies of each chromosome into different different reproductive cells. Unlike bananas, seedless watermelons are grown from seed and must be fertilized by fertile (diploid) watermelons to produce fruit.